About Us
Leadership
Senior Management Team
Errol Smart
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Errol is a geologist, registered for JORC purposes and has more than 28 years of industry experience across all aspects of exploration, mine development and operations with experience in precious and base metals. Errol has held position in Anglogold, Cluff Mining, Metallon Gold, Clarity Minerals LionGold Corporation and African Stellar Holdings. Errol’s senior executive roles have been on several boards of companies listed on both the TSX and ASX and currently serves as a Director on the Board of the Minerals Council of South Africa.
Peet van Coller
Chief Financial Officer
Chartered accountant who served his Articles of Clerkship at Ernst & Young. Peet has 23 years’ experience, predominantly in the mining and manufacturing sectors, including various senior finance and commercial positions at Jubilee Group Metals, Murray & Roberts, Master Drilling, Samancor Chrome, Anglo Platinum and ARM-Norilsk JV, Nkomati Nickel Mines.
Martin Bouwmeester
Company Secretary
Martin is an FCPA, highly experienced in exploration, mine development and operations. Prior to his role at Orion, Martin worked closely with a number of companies, to identify and assess exploration, development and mining opportunities, evaluate and arrange various alternatives for exploration, development and mining activities and develop and implement financial strategies. Martin was CFO, Business Development Manager and Company Secretary of Perseverance Corporation and was a key member of the executive team that evaluated the sulphide mineralisation at the Fosterville Gold Mine; an initiative that led to the discovery and definition of more than 3M ounces of gold and the funding for the development of the mine and processing plant to exploit those resources.
Louw Van Schalkwyk
Consulting Geologist
Louw holds a BSc Geology Honours degree from the University of Stellenbosch. He started his career as a geologist with Gold Fields of South Africa, then worked as an exploration consultant for Anglo American. He served as technical director on the boards of two junior exploration companies before joining Vedanta Zinc International. Louw specialises in structural and exploration geology and was part of the team that discovered the 60 Mt Gamsberg East Zinc Depositin 2005, which is one of the highlights of his career. Other notable achievements include the discovery and drill out of the 250,000oz Byumba Gold deposit in Rwanda in 2008.
Nelson Mosiapoa
Group Corporate Social Responsibility Advisor
Nelson studied chemical engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Nelson is currently undertaking the final phase of his Post Graduate Diploma in Management at the University of Cape Town. As an advanced policy scholar of science and technology, he served on the policy unit of the governing party in South Africa prior to the first democratic elections. His professional career started at Sasol Petroleum as a gasification process controller and then a learner official at Anglo American/De Beers. He is also the founder and trustee of the Mosiapoa Family Trust, a private and investment equity company in the resources sector with assets featured on the JSE.
Marcus Birch
Executive: Sustainability
Marcus has over 30 years’ experience in mining and minerals exploration, initially as a geologist in the South African gold mining sector, and more recently in senior general management positions in the junior exploration sector.
Pieter Roux
Group Financial Controller
Pieter holds a BCom (Management Accounting) and DipICIMA. Pieter has 18 years’ experience in finance team leadership and management in mining and exploration in Cote d’ivoire, Mali, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa. Pieter has implemented and operated real-time web-based financial control systems for companies across the African continent. He has also developed various funding models, applied for fund raising, budgeting and operational control purposes. Most recently, Pieter has worked with Taurus Gold as group financial controller, providing leadership within the finance team and management reporting for the Taurus Gold Group. Prior to that he was the finance unit manager for Evraz Highveld & Vanadium’s Mapochs Mine and group management accountant for Clarity Capital Group.
Mark Meyer
Executive: Operations West
Graduate Mechanical Engineer, Engineer’s Certificate of Competency for Mines & Works, with 40 years’ experience in Mining. Began his career in the Anglovaal gold mines, with time in the deep-level mines in the West of South Africa and the gold mines in Mpumalanga. Previously held positions at senior management level in Junior Gold Mining Operations in Ghana and Zimbabwe.
Pam Biancacci
Corporate Accountant
Pam has a BCom (Accounting) and 15 years’ experience in the finance field. Roles held include Financial Controller, Finance and Admin Manager, Assistant Accountant and Corporate Accountant. Experience in other industries such as industrial hardware and health care, has provided exposure to many aspects of finance which lead to the design and successful implementation of processes that streamlined daily work flow and reporting while connecting work sites within Australia.